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jay

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Everything posted by jay

  1. jay
    I don't think you can rely on any 60% number from the past. A. The Twins seem to be almost primarily focused on his catching skills to prove he's ready for MLB. B. There used to be a guy blocking him at the MLB level who is now a first baseman and there is zero question as to what position they want Pinto to play on a full-time basis at the MLB level.
  2. jay
    With you here. If they were to split catching for the whole year, how many games does Pinto need at DH to justify keeping him on the MLB roster vs the alternative of playing every day in AAA?
  3. jay
    As if we wouldn't have known who he was talking about if he didn't use names? Why not just come out and say it? Challenging a few players to step up (even by name) doesn't put you in Ozzie Guillen territory.... or even on the map. I don't get it. I'd think this crowd would embrace the front office finally being more direct and forthright. I can understand disagreeing with parts of his sentiments, but I don't see the full on blasting that some people are making this out to be. Flogging? Inexcusable? Feels like more assumptions from lack of context around a small portion of a much larger conversation. These types of reactions are exactly how you end up with players, managers, and front offices that won't give you any information... and then the speculation is even worse than what we get today.
  4. jay
    Best wishes to Terry, as many passionate fans here have echoed. I hope Jack's post is remembered the next time someone is convinced of their literal interpretation of a quote or even a full statement in an interview. Life is full of context... even the most extensive reporting can't capture that.
  5. jay
    For emphasis.
  6. jay
    Assets are great. However, going out and signing international players does not automatically make them an asset. By design, the team they sign with most likely offered to pay more than the 29 other MLB teams. Therefore, that player is instantly being paid more than every other team thought he was worth and no team would give up other assets (ie prospects) to acquire him at that price. The player is more of a sunk cost than an asset unless/until he develops as the team hopes. Compounding on that is the likelihood that many of these players would be willing to sign with a contending team in a major market for less than our middle-America, cellar-dwelling Twins.
  7. jay
    There's some truth to this, but I think it can be expected at the same time. If the Twins would've had more players that could come up and be "good", we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. Problem is, we didn't have enough of those around.
  8. jay
    I can understand the angst. The concept of WAR is excellent -- create a singular stat that you can use to compare players that encompasses all aspects of the game from hitting to running to defense to everything. The catch phrase "you only get out what you put in" holds true today. We don't have the tools and data needed to very accurately measure all of the aspects of the game and then assign individual value to each player from each play. The system proposed in the article would go a long way towards making those aspects more definable and hence improve the accuracy of WAR.
  9. jay
    Well, I didn't want to define the entire concept. Here's an excellent link if you'd like to read more about it: http://walksaber.blogspot.com/2009/08/silly-ops-tricks.html You're probably right that either result is well within the error range for both scenarios. However, if that's your definition of what makes it noise, there wouldn't be a single move you could make that wouldn't qualify. Even a big free agent signing and the expected gain in wins would be well within the error range of what could actually happen without that FA given all the dynamics of an individual season. If you played the season a million times, you'd find these teams would get extremely close to averaging the 81 and 82.8 numbers respectively. Although individual seasons are within error range of each other, that expected number doesn't change.
  10. jay
    And those 2003 Tigers who got all the way to 43 by winning 5 of their last 6 games. This also makes me realize I may have under-estimated how bad the Astros have been for 3 years straight with 51 to 55 wins. The fact that few teams have ever been able to win less than 47 games highlights some measure of accuracy in the replacement level figure.
  11. jay
    That's actually an interesting point. Excellent scouting is currently the best way to gauge and measure the many facets of baseball that can't be captured either very well or at all with the stats we have today. This system, if implemented in baseball, could fundamentally change that. I hope the Twins are paying attention.
  12. jay
    I'm not looking for a WAR debate, but even replacement (the R in WAR) level players would win baseball games. Replacement level is defined at Fangraphs as "one who costs no marginal resources to acquire". The expectation for a 0 WAR team is 47.7 wins on a 162 game season.
  13. jay
    There's a neat little formula where you can find that. Win Ratio = 4*(OPS/OPS Allowed) - 3 So, a team that is perfectly average in both OPS for and against has a win ratio of 1 with an expectation of 81 wins. We've been debating 3 positions summed together, so a third of the lineup. If you change the production from those 3 spots by .025 (for example, .725 vs .750), it would affect the team OPS by a third of that. Let's call .725 the average and see what impact it has: WR = 4*(.733/.725) - 3 = 1.046 Win Ratio can be converted to a more understandable winning percentage easily. W% = WR/(WR+1) W% = 1.046/(1.046+1) = .511 162 * .511 = 82.8 So, the team that was perfectly average saw their expected wins go up by 1.8 by getting a .750 OPS instead of .725 from a third of their lineup.
  14. jay
    Incredible article on Grantland about how some super smart guys have been able to create a model for the NBA that advances the ongoing efforts to evaluate the game. The model runs off an immense amount of data that tracks the position of each player on the court along with the different potential outcomes. That data is then used to find changes to the Expected Point Value (EPV) for the possession. Some folks criticize the use of expected run values in baseball because they generally go off an average, while individual situations often aren't average. This model goes as far as tracking each player and can then compare them against a more accurate, weighted average. This type of system is incredibly similar to what could work in baseball to [finally] generate more accurate defense and baserunning stats. My mind started whirling about how it could measure the path an outfielder takes to a ball, the value of hitting the cut-off man, a baserunner's decision making, and so much more. Give it a read if you can, I'd love to hear other opinions and insights. http://grantland.com/features/expected-value-possession-nba-analytics/
  15. jay
    What he hasn't done is struggle at the same level repeatedly. He was continually challenged, despite being on the slightly older end of the prospect age scale, and responded. I think you're losing that context by simply referring to overall numbers or "bad" years. In 2010, moved up from rookie ball to play 39 games at single-A with marginal results. Quickly pushed to high-A and continued that. In 2011, he started back in high-A and did well quickly, continuing that trend at AA. In 2012, he jumped to the majors and might not have been ready leading to struggles at both AAA and MLB. In 2013, he adjusted to MLB early in the year and did well. I'll buy the inconsistency argument more if he has a significantly sub-par year in 2014, but as is, I think you can contribute a fair amount of that track record to adjusting to new levels.
  16. jay
    That's pretty funny. Thank you for your contributions and insights, by the way.
  17. jay
    I decided to check who else has made it to MLB at 21 (or earlier) in the last 20 years. Age 19: 6 Age 20: 40 (2 per season) Age 21: 179 (9 per season) Even making an appearance in 2017 as a 21-year old would put him in fairly rare territory.
  18. jay
    I could see him spending time in Elizabethton with a call-up to CR as other pitchers there move up. Aside from the reasons pointed out by Brock, I don't think he'd be ready just yet for the full season workload. He could go E-town/CR this year. CR/FM next year. NB in 2016 as a 20-year old. Knocking on MLB door at 21. That feels plenty aggressive to me.
  19. jay
    A case can be made from both sides of the spectrum for Dozier. You've made the points on the floor side, but help me understand where you truly stand... how exactly do you foresee Dozier performing this year and even over the next few years?
  20. jay
    DRS and UZR are in agreement almost across the board. 2B and LF/RF are his best positions and he's been roughly average or just above there. He's been average at 3B, but hasn't done particularly well at SS and CF. Definitely passable there as a backup, but probably not starter-quality defense. I do agree that he could combine Mastro and Escobar into one person though, leaving an extra roster spot for a bench bat or option-less pitcher.
  21. jay
    Very interesting, indeed. A takeaway that popped into my head is how umpires appear to be calling more low strikes overall and that is the section of the zone where Mauer struggled to get calls, possibly due to his comparative size.
  22. jay
    You're more than welcome to disagree with the playing time projections that Fangraphs is using. However, I don't think you have any basis at all to claim that ZIPS and Steamer are anything other than completely neutral. I'm not sure how ZIPS/Steamer having Pinto at a .723 is hitting "like he did last September", but let's not let hyperbole and selective data get in the way of making a point... certainly no shortage of that elsewhere. Let's compare, 1B/DH/C for 2014: Fangraphs - .751 Me - .737 You - .725 and that's "very generous" with copious usage of "optimistic" Okay...
  23. jay
    That was exactly the point. He doesn't match up with the guys on that list and therefore is going to have a hard time consistently reaching .350. If you want to believe he'll OBP .350 with a BB > 9% and K > 20%, those are the guys doing it today. Span has some similar tools, but K's at < 12% and can't be used as a comp for OBP.
  24. jay
    Absolutely, BB rate is extremely important. I don't think you can ignore K rate though. You have to do increasingly well on the balls that are put in play the higher the K rate goes. We can set a few minimal parameters to find comparisons to Aaron's profile if he's a .350 OBP regular: At least 1000 PAs over the 2011-2013 seasons, total SB > 10 (to eliminate pure sluggers), BB% > 9%, K% > 20%. Here's the full list of who qualifies with a .350 or greater OBP: Mike Trout Shin-Soo Choo Paul Goldschmidt Matt Kemp Dexter Fowler Jayson Werth Carlos Gonzalez Chase Headley Giancarlo Stanton Justin Upton Alex Rodriguez Brandon Belt Those guys do pretty well on the balls they put in play. I'd say that's pretty lofty territory, no? Jonny Gomes and Austin Jackson are the only other players over .340.
  25. jay
    23 guys accomplished that in the AL last year. Only 3 of them had a K rate >20% (as Aaron has throughout his career) -- Chris Davis, Napoli, and Kipnis. Kipnis is the only one even close to similar. He was closer to a 17% K rate in MiLB and has more power. Point being, I think Aaron will strike out too much in MLB to consistently reach a .350 OBP. I'd be happy to be wrong.
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